|
|
The Creative Business is a series of 12 modules of information about developing creative enterprises, written especially for people running businesses in the creative industries.
The information is particularly relevant to creative businesses and cultural enterprises in the fields of Advertising, Literature and Publishing, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Music, Design, Cultural Heritage, and Crafts.
Published on the Creative Choices website, this series of 12 articles covers a range of business issues facing creative entrepreneurs:
1. It's Creative but is it a Business? Business Feasibility - deciding whether or not to make a business from your creativity.
2. You're Creative - but so are they! Dealing with competition - understanding your competitive advantage in relation to rivals in the marketplace.
3. Not All Customers are Good Customers. Choosing Customers - finding the right customers to fit with your creativity, ambitions and values.
4. Precision Marketing. Advertising and Publicity - communicating your key messages to customers.
5. Structuring Your Enterprise. Setting up a Business - choosing the best structure: self-employed, not-for-profit company, or commercial enterprise?
6. Make Money While You Sleep! Protecting your Ideas - using intellectual property rights to protect your creativity and make money while you sleep.
7. Creative Collaborations and other essential C-words. Working in partnership with other individuals and businesses in the creative or other sectors.
8. Raising and Managing Money. Financial Management - getting the right financial result by managing your income and expenditure.
9. Customers as Partners. Keeping Customers - listening to customers and building closer relationships with your best customers.
10. Reassuringly Expensive. Pricing - deciding how much to charge by looking at pricing and value from the customers' point of view.
11. Focusing your Enterprise - selecting priorities for development as new opportunities arise.
12. Growing your Business - key issues ahead as your business grows.
---
Read and comment on these articles by David Parrish at The Creative Business blog on the Creative Choices website.
---
Raising finance from loans or investments can be a major challenge for all types of businesses, and it’s especially difficult when credit is scarce and investors are feeling the pinch. So any alternative ways of raising funds are worth exploring.
Enterprises in the creative, cultural and digital sector have creativity at the centre of their products and services, yet don’t always apply that same creativity to the business side of things, such as marketing, leadership or finance. But some do. True ‘creative entrepreneurs’ are not just creative people doing business – they are creative with business too. Some of these creative entrepreneurs - especially in music and film - are exploring innovative ways of raising serious amounts of money by asking lots of people for modest investments. This ‘Crowd-Financing’ approach can be labelled ‘Fan-Financing’ when fans are the focus for investments. Here are some examples:
Australian musician Clint Crighton has devised a way of raising funds from his fans to record his next album. For 100 Australian dollars (about £50) you can join an exclusive club of fans which gives you special privileges: a lifetime free entrance pass to all his live gigs, a signed pre-release version of his next album, and a chance to win a trip to Los Angeles to be there at the recording of his next album. A membership of 1,000 true fans will raise the 100,000 Australian dollars he needs.
In the USA, singer-songwriter Jill Sobule invites fans to invest in her enterprise at different levels to receive a range of different benefits. From just 10 US dollars for a digital download, the investment levels rise in steps to 1,000 USD for a specially-written song for your voicemail greeting. For 5,000 USD she will perform a concert in your home and if you want to invest 10,000 USD you can sing along with her on her next album.
In the UK, Slice the Pie is a sophisticated music investment site which allows you to invest in the future success of a wide range of musicians. (I’ve invested £100 in Sarah Grace.) This model also uses a voting system to find and filter talent and then voters are invited to invest. Like the X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, this model cleverly involves the ‘crowds’ in voting - and at the same time builds a base of followers who eventually become customers or investors.
Three British teenagers raised £105,000 by selling credits in their film - for just £1 you can have your name listed in the closing credits. Award-winning Merseyside writer and film director Fiona Maher sold bit-parts in her film on eBay to raise money for her first full-length feature film. A new film called The Age of Stupid is using crowd-financing to raise investment from the public by selling shares priced £10,000 which entitle investors to a share of the profits.
Music and film are leading the way with fan-financing in the creative industries, but surely other enterprises - in the creative sectors and elsewhere - could adapt these models to their own situations and raise much-needed cash by adopting this crowd-financing approach.
---
This article was first published by 08businessconnect.com
Copyright David Parrish 2009. Some Rights Reserved.
---
Thanks to Alun Parry for telling me about Andrew Dubber's excellent free eBook
New Music Strategies: The 20 Things You Must Know About Music Online.
It's a must for anyone in the music business.
And for everyone else too.
For other creative entrepreneurs it has lots of useful information about Web 2.0 business strategies, the Long Tail, and lots of good advice about internet marketing in general.
---
Steve Messam is a talented artist - and a shrewd creative entrepreneur.
Steve was approached by Cumbria Tourism in the UK to create an art installation to help publicise the launch of their campaign for cultural tourism. The budget offered was a modest £4,000 GBP so Steve put together a business case for a bigger budget. He knew that the client wanted publicity and so argued that a bigger investment in a more impressive work of art would pay dividends in terms of 'Advertising Equivalent Value' (AEV) - in other words, the cost of the publicity in column inches if it were paid for as advertising.
Steve pitched his idea and business case to the PR Agency Colman Getty, who specialise in arts related work and had been commissioned by Cumbria Tourism to publicise the art installation and campaign for cultural tourism. Using data from previous projects, Steve calculated that the Advertising Equivalent Value should be at least £150,000 GBP and possibly as high as £250,000 GBP, provided the budget for his art installation was increased six-fold. Colman Getty understood the commercial value of the PR that could be generated and helped Steve to convince the client to invest accordingly.
The result was a spectacular installation called 'Drop', a huge inflatable sculpture modelled on a drop of water. The sculpture was installed at various scenic locations in the English Lake District. Part of the publicity campaign was to encourage tourists to take and publish photos of the huge silver sculpture and this viral marketing helped to promote the campaign further.
See photo below. More images of Drop can be seen in this pool of photos on Flickr.
With the help of Steve Messam's art, the campaign was highly successful and exceeded its targets in terms of publicity. In one weekend alone, over 10,500 people went to see it. News and images even reached the world's biggest circulation newspaper, China Daily.
Steve's reputation - and his creative enterprise - goes from strength to strength. He will be exhibiting his latest art installation at the Venice Biennale in June 2009, raising finance in a similar way using the business case of Advertising Equivalent Value, rather than an application for an arts grant.
---
Discuss this and other ways of raising finance on the Creative Enterprise Network.
---
For many people, the words ‘business’ and ‘culture’ don’t sit comfortably side by side. Some people assume that culture has to be non-commercial to be valid, and therefore to apply commercial thinking to cultural endeavour is to pervert it. But even charities and ‘non-for-profit’ organisations in the arts and cultural sector need to be business-like, even though the traditional business motive of profit maximisation does not apply.
Many people in the arts are reluctant to use business terminology, despite being very professional and successful in achieving their aims. When I was interviewing creative enterprises for my book ‘T-Shirts and Suits’, several managers said that they had never devised a ‘business strategy’ or used ‘market research’. These terms were simply alien to them. In fact they did do these things, but didn’t use those words or document these processes conventionally. More often than not they were skilled at growing their business and excellent at listening to customers. Ironically, cultural organisations and creative businesses are often keen to shun commercial jargon whilst actually using smart ‘business thinking’ to achieve success in their own terms.
My own background is in the cultural sector and later I also studied at business school, so I’m comfortable with business jargon but at the same time I understand the sensitivities within the arts about business vocabulary. Recently, in preparing a training workshop for arts organisations I was asked not to use the term ‘customers’ but use ‘audience’ instead. It’s a matter of choosing vocabulary appropriate to the context. In my book I feature the Windows Project, a cultural enterprise which devised a ‘Development Plan’ rather than a ‘Business Plan’ because that term fitted better with their ethos. Despite its name, it’s as robust as any business plan from the commercial sector.
The cultural sector can and should learn from other sectors, but it’s a matter of sensitively adapting techniques to fit into a different context - and maybe changing the terminology too. Equally, the commercial sector can learn from the cultural sector, but need to see what’s actually happening rather than being put off by the lack of business jargon. For example, I’ve been engaged by international corporations for revealing to them management techniques which are commonplace in the arts world, but I’ve expressed them in business-speak to make them more acceptable to pin-striped clients.
So it’s the terminology that’s the issue, not the reality. Lack of business jargon doesn’t indicate an absence of smart ‘business thinking’. It’s a point worth making, for two reasons. Firstly to dispel the myth outside the arts sector that cultural organisations are somehow ‘amateur’, simply because they use different language. Secondly to challenge the belief held by some in the cultural sector itself that using business terminology to describe what they do inevitably means somehow ‘selling out’.
In the end, it doesn’t matter whether or not we choose to use the jargon of business. What really matters is being clear about our definitions of ‘success’ and then achieving it. Then we can all become even more successful by using appropriate management methods and techniques which fit the objectives and ethos of our organisations - in the cultural sector or elsewhere - whatever vocabulary we choose to use.
--
This article was first published by www.08BusinessConnect.com
Copyright David Parrish 2009. Some Rights Reserved.
---
I was asked to give "three top tips" to creative entrepreneurs in an interview about how to successfully blend creativity and business.
Ellie Stevenson interviewed me, along with Nick Williams of 'Inspired Entrepreneur'.
Read the full interview on the ArtsHub website.
Here's an extract:
Can you give us three top tips for running your own successful creative business, David?
1. Firstly, define what you mean by success – it could be a mixture of financial success, creative challenges, recognition, job satisfaction, quality of life, etc, and that formula will be different for everyone. Define what you mean by success, don’t let others define it for you, and know where you want to go.
2. Be clear about your market and don’t try to sell to everyone. Choose your customers. Choose customers that fit your objectives and your ethos and that deliver the financial results you want. Don’t have a scattergun approach, looking for any old customer. Choose the customers that work best for your business strategy.
3. Understand intellectual property (IP), because IP is at the core of the creative industries. It’s important to make sure you don’t get ripped off by other people, so it’s about defending and protecting intellectual property; but just as importantly, it’s also about how to commercialise that IP so you can make money from it, through sales and licensing, for example. Given that IP is so central, I think most creative businesses could do with knowing a bit more, and learning how to use it.
---
Note: This is an extract from an article by Ellie Stevenson, first published on ArtsHub UK.
---
Share your own Top Tips with other creative people in business on the Creative Enterprise Network
---
A useful and readable 'Creative, Cultural and Digital Industries Guide' has been published by Business Link West Midlands
It is available in hardcopy from Business Link West Midlands and downloadable as a free eBook in PDF format below.
This creative business guide was written by David Parrish, author of the book 'T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity'.
The 48 page publication covers a range of issues relevant to enterprises in the creative, cultural and digital sectors.
Sections include:
- Strategic Planning
- Understanding your Customers
- Profiting from your Ideas
- Organisational Structures
- People and Skills
- Promoting your Products / Services
- Financial Management
- Legal and other issues
- Links to useful organisations and resources for creative enterprises
There are also four case studies featuring creative enterprises from the West Midlands region: 383 Project, Stan's Cafe, Gas Street Works, and Capsule.
Download PDF:
Creative, Cultural and Digital Industries Guide (PDF) [3.2 MB]
Businesses in the West Midlands region of England can obtain a hard copy of the Guide.
Contact Business Link West Midlands on 0845 113 1234.
The creative industries guide was designed by iDM Design, Wolverhampton This creative business guide was written by David Parish of TShirts and Suits.
David Parish retains copyright in this material and other writing about the business of creativity, as published in the book 'T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity', the publication 'Designing Your Creative Business' and a series of other articles, blogs and 'Ideas in Action' features.
Similar creative business guides can be written for other organisations in the creative, cultural and digital sectors.
Contact David Parrish to discuss options and possibilities for your own version of this creative industries guide.
---
"Are you busy?" is often a conversation opener between creative people in business.
The implication is that you should be busy; if you're not busy, then something is wrong.
So it seems that the 'correct' answer is "Yes, very busy!"
But wait a minute !
Busy doing what ?
It's easy to be busy, busy, busy. Mainly because it gives us an excuse not to Think.
Thinking is difficult. Running around being busy is actually much easier.
There are many "busy fools" out there, trying to do too much - and achieving nothing.
"Action is easy; thought is hard", wrote Goethe.
“Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action”
says Timothy Ferris in his book 'The 4-Hour Work Week'.
I'm writing this at the end of the year, which is a good time for reflecting on the past and making plans for the future. (But we should reflect and plan more often than once a year, so anytime is good.)
Personally I'm going to make a resolution to be less "busy-busy" and focus on doing a few things really well and in a less frantic way. Then my answer to the common question "Are you busy?" will be an uncommon "No not busy - but highly effective." (Wouldn't that be a cool thing to be able to say?)
But first, the hard part. It means I need to stop and think, then decide what are the most important things I need to do - and therefore what not to do - in the coming year.
I'm going to think and make some strategic decisions.
What about you?
---
How will creative businesses cope in the economic downturn?
That’s a question that I have been asked many times recently, both in the UK and overseas.
In response, I make the following points:
Though the general economic situation is difficult, the recession will not affect all businesses equally. It is not inevitable that all businesses will suffer. So individual entrepreneurs need to look at their own specific circumstances. There are opportunities as well as threats in times of economic hardship.
Hard times affect competitors too. If your competitors are hit harder than you, then the economic climate can provide some competitive advantage. In my book T-Shirts and Suits I use the analogy of running uphill to point out that though it hurts, you can still get ahead of your rivals if it hurts them even more and you are fitter at uphill running. Some businesses will become insolvent – make sure you survive when your competitors don’t.
In a meeting in Liverpool with the UK Minister responsible for creative industries, Barbara Follett MP, several creative enterprises reported that the recession had prompted them to tighten up their systems and practices, especially credit control, which actually helped them to make their businesses more efficient and financially stronger. In some ways, the recession is a blessing in disguise.
The economic downturn will undoubtedly put pressure on businesses in the creative sector. This pressure will reveal weaknesses in individual firms that have so far gone undetected. Various crucial aspects of business will be tested, for example: customer relationships, fixed/flexible cost structures, credit control and cash flow, customer base (eg overseas clients), staff loyalty and commitment, and other factors.
Now, more than ever, businesses need to concentrate on the basics.
- Focus on the products and services at which you excel and make you stand out from the crowd. Play to your strengths and make the most of your competitive advantage.
- Keep your existing customers and build on the client relationships you have nurtured.
- Pay close attention to cash flow planning and management – “cash is reality”.
There is no better time than now to focus on the essentials of your business strategy.
For some creative businesses, the economic downturn will be a time for winning, not losing.
---
Copyright © David Parrish 2008.
First published in Creative Times Online
Lewis Pinault from Lego Serious Play addressed the Creative Clusters Conference in Glasgow - and I had fun making a duck (see photo).
Lego Serious Play helps bus inesses think creatively using Lego in group settings to discuss business issues. For example entrepreneurs can express their shared vision for the business by first creating a model which expresses their hopes and fears. This fun activity leads to serious discussion and new insights.
As a bonus, the manual dexterity needed for this kind of creative play stimulates parts of the brain that other activitie do not reach, apparently.
Lego also invites its millions of users to design new bricks and kits for the company. As Lewis Pinault said "this open platform needs tons and tons of volunteer designers." In other words, adopting the Wisdom of Crowds or Crowdsourcing approach, the company uses the ideas and energy of people outside the business to create new products it can sell.
Another example of Crowdsourcing, from the book Wikinomics, is about a Canadian gold mine, Goldcorp Inc, which published its geological information on the internet and offered $575,000 in prize money to anyone who could help them find more gold. Submissions came from all over the world and transformed the $100m company into a $9bn giant.
Instead of keeping information and ideas in-house, sometimes it's better to share data and engage with the crowd to collect new ideas and design better products and services.
PS: The crowd of Lego fans also promote the company indirectly using viral marketing by publishing more than 55,000 videos of their Lego models on YouTube.
---
Let me know how your creative business uses Crowdsourcing techniques.
---
|
|
|
