Business Plan:
Structure: If you can think like an artist but act like a business owner your chances for career stability, consistency and longevity increase markedly. Careers in entertainment, media, and the arts can be volatile with large swings of feast and famine. These days, professionals in other industries face the same challenges. Whether you are freelance or company employee, it’s imperative to have a business advancement plan in place. One solution is applying the four primary elements of a career/business structure and understanding how they interact to direct your efforts more effectively. A clear and realistic business plan is invaluable. We will design yours to fit on one page!
Diversification: Acquiring new skills, creating proprietary projects, developing secondary income streams, and researching new job opportunities are all ways to keep your career/business vibrant & flexible in the marketplace. Research and development departments of corporations are always generating new products and services. Diversification creates more demand for you and your services and insures increased continuity of income.
Marketing & Sales: If you are freelance or looking for a staff job then effectively marketing yourself is essential. It is often the hardest challenge we face. Selling yourself is not easy. UGH! Clarity in presenting your brand, your tools, and your talents is essential. Know how your toolbox fits others’ needs. If you hand them a wrench and they need a screwdriver then you’re probably out the door. Present yourself with a positive attitude fueled by your ability to solve their problems. Be a solution. It makes for a powerful pitch. What is your thirty-second elevator speech?
Networking: Often we network only when looking for work. By then it’s generally too late. Successful professionals make networking a part of their day, every day, they block time for it, develop a database, reach out consistently even when they don’t feel like it, and they follow up. Building a network of advocates, staying in touch, being of service, and sharing information is the lifeblood of your career. We will create a structure to help you keep in touch and build contacts daily. It’s called Target 25.
Production: Being in production creates a whole new set of challenges, so much time executing for others and so little time for your own business, family and personal needs. When in production it’s essential to have systems and teams in place to support all of your various needs. Remember you are the CEO of your own company. Learning to delegate effectively is a skill.
Operations: Systems & Teams: Managing your career takes some organization, prioritization, and delegation. It may also take a support team. The bigger your career/business gets, the greater the details that if left undone can end up costing time and money. For some, organization is easy. For others, it can seem overwhelming. Having systems and people in place to help is imperative. Remember, they work for you. How can you manage and inspire their effectiveness?
Career Options:
Jumpstart: Some clients are stuck; others are bored or burned out. They want to renew their interest and passion for the work they are doing. They don’t want to leave the job; they know it’s a good one. They want to re-ignite their interest and passion. At the end of the day, they just want to have more fun & be more fulfilled. I have helped many clients find enthusiasm again. It’s not as hard as it seems.
Promotion: Career promotion is an exciting process that calls on creativity, hutzpah, a clear objective and a strategic action plan. It also requires you to stretch beyond your comfort level, raise the bar and take some risks in presenting a bigger picture of yourself. Moving up can be scary and that fear may be what’s stopping you. Once over that obstacle the path tends to open.
Transition: Transitioning to a new career is not easy. It takes guts, determination and some financial resources to carry you through. Your age, education, family responsibilities, and willingness to take risks often dictate the ease or difficulty of the move. Your determination is the key ingredient.
Employment: When unemployed, especially if it’s been a while, you can experience anxiety, fear, and desperation. Depression can seep in and things can start to feel pretty hopeless. This is the time it’s most important to recommit and draw on all your resources, systems, and advocates. During this time you aren’t working for others, you are working for yourself, your own company. You are the CEO managing your own time, prioritizing objectives, and committing to systems supporting those objectives. Support at this time is vital to keep you focused, positive, and productive.
The Mental Game
Creativity Under Pressure: sometimes your work will seem like it’s about everything but the work. It’s about politics, personalities, the budget, deadlines, schmoozing, or just surviving the tidal wave of pressure. How can you find that quiet place in your creative soul where you can consistently give voice to the reason you chose this line of work in the first place? How can you retain and function from your creative center? There is nothing more important than this.
Motivation: Your career, your business and your livelihood depend on your enthusiasm every day (even when you don’t feel like it.) Motivating yourself is a key component in accomplishing daily activities that add up to long-term career success. One reason clients come to work with me is to re-ignite their passion to get back into the flow. It’s easy to get off track and lose momentum. You may have suffered setbacks, experienced rejection, failure, unemployment, or inner doubt. These are all part of the game. The challenge is bouncing back and staying consistent and engaged.
Pressure, Stress & Anxiety: These three beauties run rampant in creative industries. You are no stranger to them. At times, maybe even much of the time, you experience them. Learning to manage them in healthy ways is critical. Many have fallen before you adapting unhealthy responses, addictions, habits, and lifestyles thinking they could suck it up and bull their way through. Think again. Adopt physical, psychological and emotional structures to stay balanced, sane and at your best.
Taking Things Personally: Being more business-like can help you develop a thicker skin. Creative folks like us are highly sensitive. It’s one of our greatest assets. It can also be our greatest obstacle if allowed to rule our emotions and subsequent behavior. We’ve all heard the stories or been on the set when someone has gone ballistic. How can we learn to manage our sensitivity and emotions to serve our art without allowing them wreak havoc in our careers or life.
Rejection: Rejection is a given in creative industries, especially for freelancers. If you can reframe rejection as one of the probabilities of doing business and experience it as just another part of the sales process, then you can shield yourself from immense pain and disappointment. Most successful people point to rejection and failure in business as great stepping-stones to converting the energy of failure to fuel for future success.
Negative Inner Voice: Many clients report that they have a nasty inner voice that can be very hurtful and defeating. This voice can be a terror, causing insecurity and undercutting initiative and self-worth. The most important thing you can do for your career(and your life)is learn how to manage this voice. Choose enthusiasm, confidence, and resolve. You will never get rid of this negative voice altogether (Bummer) but you can learn to manage it with a straightforward system called Taming Your Gremlin. (Yippee!)
Sabotage: Sometimes, unknowingly, we sabotage the very goals we are intent on accomplishing. Old thinking, old behaviors, and old beliefs conspire to defeat us. They are our defaults. They don’t change unless we make a concerted effort to change them. We do that when we recognize that they no longer serve us. The light bulb goes off. We see the pattern. We then have the opportunity to replace them with something more productive and fulfilling.
Finding Balance: In creative industries life balance seems like a joke much of the time. How can you have life balance when you are working 60 to 70 hours a week? That said, you can try to create more balance over a longer time frame by taking time off, leaving town on mini or extended vacation, taking care of and pacing yourself, not overbooking, and by rejecting problematic or abusive jobs. Try to be mindful that all the important aspects and core values of your life are honored. Finding a balance that works for you and your family is crucial for your longevity and peace of mind.