10 TIPS FOR RUNNING A CREATIVE BUSINESS

Can business be creative and successful? Absolutely. In fact, it’s something we are rather good at here. But in our globalised, always connected world, there’s no easy roadmap to glory.

“What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to anyone running a creative business today?”

No matter how good your business plan, and how well defined your proposition, there’s no silver bullet that guarantees financial success and creative stardom. How you get there is down to you – the people you gather around you, and the insight and experience you pick up along the way.

When it comes to our mentors’ tips for success, here’s their Top Ten:

1. Be an expert in one thing

Know the score, know your patch, know what you’re good at – and focus on it. Don’t try to conquer the world all at once.

2. Create a plan... change the plan... get a new plan...

Develop a clear vision for your business and articulate a sense of where you’re heading, even if you might need a couple of diversions en route.

3. Roll the dice

If playing it safe is what everyone else does, then do the things others wouldn’t do and be a risk taker. Break the cycle. Change the conversation. Get noticed.

4. The bottom-line: your bottom line

You’re running a real business and employing real people. And profit definitely isn’t a dirty word. So remember to keep an eye on the numbers and always watch your cashflow.

5. Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate

Engage the brains around you and build a culture of collaboration and partnership in your business (and with clients and suppliers too) to help stimulate and evolve new ideas.

6. Great ideas are worth protecting

Ideas – and your expression of them – are everything. They’re the value you’ll be building up over the years to come, so protect them... and be prepared to defend them.

7. Start digital, stay digital

Connect. Engage. Like. Post. LinkIn. And don’t just think and act like a business from East Anglia. Or even the UK. By putting digital at the heart of your thinking, your market can be the whole world.

8. Be tenacious

If at first you don’t succeed, curse under your breath and keep at it. Business success is as much about perspiration as it is inspiration. Don’t give up.

9. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Failed pitches, bad client meetings, prototypes gone awry, IT foul-ups... they’re the stuff of every business, not just yours. The trick is to find out why things went pear-shaped and move on...

10. Find the fun

You’re running a creative business, remember? So don’t forget, if it doesn’t feel like fun, find the fun in what you’re doing.

GREAT STRATEGIES TO EXPAND YOUR CLIENT BASE

If you‘re constantly doing business with the same two clients, it’s time to branch out. A growing network means more opportunities for your brand to grow too.

Between cold calling, researching, and networking events, there’s plenty of ways you can expand your client base, and your business will thank you for it.

Q. What’s one tip for diversifying your client base?

1. Determine Your Niches

A mentor once recommended that determining five niches is key. First, identify the market(s) you want to go after. Second, research the market(s) and what they need. Third, target the market(s) with cold calls, emails, networking activities, and events. Lastly, jump in! Get involved in specific markets, and you will be working with those markets.

2. Attend industry Parties

I’ve had luck hanging out at events that were not centered around development Nigeria, in particular, has so many different events centered around art, music, and especially entertainment. They attract a pretty diverse crowd of professionals from different industries who have particular common interests. I’ve met some of my favorite clients at venues with live music.

3. Know Your Core Clients Well

If you know your core client inside and out, you will have no problem crossing industries with ease. Mainstream Entertainment Group, my video production company, was heavily focused on one client, but we identified our core client, made an avatar of it, and began the process of crossing over industries to bring in new clients.

4. Identify Companies That Excel in Your Niche

Recently, we realized we wanted to get into yoga studios, gyms, and other fitness channels where our products would stand out on the shelves. We figured out who the best companies selling products in those spaces were and set up informational interviews to figure out how they did it.

5. Do Your Research

If you don’t know for sure who else will buy what you‘re selling, it will be a very painful and long process. Just because you think teenagers, for example, will buy what you‘re selling, doesn’t mean they will actually buy it. You have to do the research and data collection beforehand in order to correctly diversify your client base.

6. Diversify Your Outreach

we learned that by being creative with our outreach through social media, contests, conventions, speaking engagements, content articles, and much more, we find new customers of various backgrounds. And expanding to places where you normally don’t do PR and marketing, you might unearth a new client base you were originally unaware of.

7. Partner With Other Companies

A good way to diversify your client base is to reach out to companies in your industry that provide services related to your business. We’re a digital agency, so we would reach out to a social media agency or a PR agency, for example. We might be able to partner our projects, refer clients, or handle overflow work.

8. Make Connections

Build your network by making connections. When you make connections with people, organizations, or communities, amazing opportunities may unfold. It’s important that you make an effort to learn about and understand the other side first. If you have some understanding of their perspective, and they have some understanding of yours, then obvious win-win situations will emerge.

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DECISION MAKING IN THE YELLOW LIGHT ZONE

DECISION-MAKING IS EASY AT RED OR GREEN LIGHT, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE YELLOW LIGHT? 

One of my roles as a creativity and innovation coach is to help innovators and entrepreneurs hone their leadership skills. Sharon*— a university professor and social innovation entrepreneur—asked me for coaching on achieving her goals for a large visionary project. Since she is highly motivated and productive, most of our coaching conversations were about stepping up to the challenges of leadership, exploring the deeper truth of a situation, and decision-making; so she could move forward. She shared this insight with me following a breakthrough coaching session:

One of the most poignant learnings I have gained through our coaching sessions is to gauge where to put my focus and energy? Where are the green lights and where are the red lights? Sometimes I have been hovering in the yellow light zone, hesitating to call something for what it was: a red light. Stopping, putting an expiry date on activities and business relationships that are going nowhere–helps me to put energy into positive initiatives. Knowing that a green light is bright green really helps me to put more focus there. Thanks so much for helping me find clarity!

I love Sharon’s traffic-light metaphor for decision-making. It’s easy to know what to do at a red or green light, but what about the yellow light? Do you take a gamble and proceed? If you are investing time and energy on a project you hope to get funded, at what point do you stop giving away expertise to forward your cause? And how do you stop, without ruining an important relationship? As we explored options and strategies, a message from BC Lottery about gambling popped into my mind:

Know your limit and play within it.

When I shared this, Sharon burst out laughing and had a flash of insight that triggered her yellow light analogy. She chose to let go of a project dear to her heart and move on. Interestingly, once she let go, she received funding a few weeks later.

TIPS FOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT SUCCESS

Revenue generation is part of everyone’s job functionality, no matter whether you work in a business development function for an engineering service company, sell technical solutions, or are part of the technical team for that company.