Читать книгу Make Your Creativity Pay - Pete Mosley - Страница 7

The ideas I introduce in this chapter are things that I wish someone had taken me aside and thrashed into me when I first started out. Life would have been a hell of a lot easier. In a sense, they are the immutable truths, basic rules that really should be followed. The paragraphs that follow summarise the main themes that will be explored in detail as we move through the book.

I’ve worked with lots of creative businesses, and have evaluated and assessed many more. For all of that, I reckon success in most areas of business boils down to a small number of really simple factors. Get these right and most other things fall into place. What I say here applies equally to painters and mosaic artists, musicians and cake makers. The same rules apply right across the spectrum of micro-enterprise.

Do your research

Whatever you do, don’t go into this venture blind. Scour the web to see what your fellow entrepreneurs are doing. Go to popular shopping areas – especially the ones that have clusters of the specialist shops or outlets you’d like to sell to. They’ve not appeared there by accident. Read, talk to people, attend events. Look at other people’s marketing materials. Get to know the marketplace inside out before you begin. If you don’t do this, how can you expect to be a skilled player within it?

Quality - of your ideas and products

In the end, success boils down to having a product or service that people want to buy. That people will buy in sufficient quantity to sustain you. So it’s got to be good.

Please don’t commit to starting up until you are convinced that this is the case. Be objective, check it out with people who can give neutral feedback. Pay attention to the feedback, and refine your ideas as necessary. Skip this step at your peril.

Supply and demand

I often visit colleges and talk to arts and humanities students. When the subject of self-employment comes up the most common fear that comes into people’s minds is the spectre of having to deal with record keeping, the taxman, banking and accountants.

I always feel that this is approaching the problem from the wrong end. The real issue when starting a small business is to do with supply and demand – you need to know for sure that there’s a big enough demand for your product in order for you to cover all your costs and for you to make a decent living out of it. Finding out about the other stuff is relatively easy in comparison to figuring this out.

Know your market

Study your niche. Can you identify and list all the different types of people who will buy your product? Do you understand their wants and needs? Have you asked them? Will what you make and do fulfil their dreams and desires?

Will people be eager to buy what you make or do? How will you know? How can you find out?

Quality – in your dealings with others

People pay more for quality. This is true. But it will really help you along if you infuse quality through everything you do – not simply in terms of what you produce. Don’t rush, take your time, pay attention to detail on every level. Great presentation counts for a lot, but nothing impresses people more than having someone take the time to make sure everything is ‘just so’. Every one of us can define great customer service – far fewer actually deliver it. Get this right and everything else will be easier.

Building track record

Get known for doing a great job every time. Be consistent. Ask your customers what they want. Ask them how they want to be treated. Ask them how they’d like you to communicate with them – and how often. Ask them to tell you if you make a mistake or fall short of their expectations. If you do – don’t justify it – apologise and never make the same mistake again. Build your track record and reputation systematically, record everything you do. If you are just starting out, student committee experience, volunteering, work experience and internships count too. Good references and testimonials of any sort count.

High quality documentation

Get a good camera and learn how to use it well. There are excellent workshops you can attend to find out how to capture great images without spending a fortune on professional photography. If you get the chance to have professional photos done too, grab the opportunity when you can. It’s more about having a representative selection of great, well lit shots than having dozens of moderately good ones.

If video is appropriate, for instance to capture the excitement of a piece being made or performed, or to explain a unique process, then find a way of getting the video too. And don’t forget to put it on your website or blog.

Whenever someone says something positive about what you do, capture it – write it down, record it, video it – whatever you need to capture it for posterity. Collect press cuttings, and don’t be afraid to ask for quotes and testimonials. If people like you and your work they will give these freely.

Superb communications

Think about a business or individual that has really impressed you recently. The chances are that a large part of the impression they have made on you comes down to the quality of the dialogue you have had with them. Politeness, patience, promptness of response. Did they listen carefully to your request, and answer the question you posed, rather than trotting out a carefully rehearsed corporate pitch? Great communications differentiate a great business from a merely good one.

Talk to your competitors – they might actually be your allies

I’m always amazed by how cagey people are about their perceived competitors. Scared I guess that others will grab their share of the market. To use an analogy – if you are shopping for shoes, where would you rather go? To a local village with one shoe shop, or to a city where you know there are many shoe shops within striking distance of each other?

Big retailers use this clustering phenomenon to their advantage. The lesson to be learned here is one of differentiation. If your work stands out you will have nothing to fear from being in proximity to, or even working with, your competitors.

Find the gatekeepers and befriend them

People who run small businesses find themselves being encouraged to network all the time. That’s fine, but you can spend a lot of time talking to people who have also gone to the networking event to sell, not buy. Also, very few of us are natural networkers – it can be an uncomfortable and unrewarding activity. By far the best strategy is to take time doing a bit of forensic research to work out who the gatekeepers really are. By gatekeepers I mean people who have influence or decision making power, and who probably already know all the other contacts you are trying to find.

Find the gatekeepers and expend your efforts on building a relationship with them – preferably in advance of asking them for their advice or help. Build on any common ground you find. Then show your hand and ask for the help you need. I can’t stress enough that success depends on building first class relationships with people.

Get some feedback

One of the very first things to do is to get a thorough appraisal of your work – from as many viewpoints as possible. If you are a student, you will be used to hearing the views of your peers and tutors. This is not the same thing, I’m afraid, as bravely putting your work in front of potential customers out in the real world. Don’t rely on Ma, Pa, mate or partner to tell you whether your output cuts the mustard. You need to know the ugly truth.

Without that feedback, you don’t get the information you need to fine tune your creative output to the needs of the marketplace.

It’s often a good idea to test the water in small ways first. By that I mean trying to sell some of your products before formally committing to starting a business. Start by talking to family and friends – do a bit of ‘mates’ marketing. Let them know what you are trying to do. See if there are any social opportunities for you to show your work to people and give them the opportunity to buy it. You can also try things like approaching local traders or even going to local community fairs just to engage with a lot more people and see if they are interested enough in the things that you make or do to buy them.

Geography and critical mass

Geography is a critical factor. Where do you want to live and work? It’s worth opening up a large scale map of your region and thinking about the following things:

How many cities and towns – large population centres – are within striking distance? List them. Draw a circle on the map that delineates a comfortable travelling distance – to visit retailers to encourage them to take your work and later, to deliver stock to them. Do some research. How many shops and other potential outlets are there within your chosen area? In marketing terms, is there a big enough slice of your target market close enough to you so that you can both make and sell effectively in the time you have available?

If you are going to supplement your making with teaching or workshopping, you need to think about all the places that might be available to you for that portion of income too.

Baby steps

The appeal of starting out small and growing in small increments is that you lessen the risk. The truth of the matter is that it’s a minority who make a full time living straight away, and those who do tend to be mature businesses that have been building up turnover over a number of years.

By building the business up over time it lessens the need for huge amounts of startup capital, and allows you to make informed decisions about when to move to the next stage.

A lot of people dive straight into starting a small business and invest large sums of money on equipment, stocks of materials, perhaps even renting studio or retail premises before they have really tested the market. It’s a worrying statistic, but around a third of small businesses fail within the first three years. This happens for a number of reasons – usually because people fail to check out the actual demand for their product before they start the business in the first place, or because they don’t take account of the real costs of running the business and the cash-flow difficulties those costs can create.

Take advice – and then some more – and then again

Use experts in areas where you are clearly not expert yourself. In areas such as taxation, book-keeping and accountancy, it’s very easy to think that by doing your own tax returns, self assessment etc., that you will somehow save yourself loads of money. The truth is, an accountant will spot everything you can legitimately claim, and will save you much more than the cost of their fee each year. A good book-keeper will also save you money by presenting your finances in a format that your accountant will find easy to read and interpret. The less time it takes for your accountant to read your accounts, the less you will have to pay them.

Don’ t be afraid of the taxman

For some reason, people develop a huge fear of dealing with the tax office. I have to say, in my experience, they generally bend over backwards to be helpful, as long as you play by the rules. Most tax offices run advice sessions, surgeries and workshops for start-ups. The tax office websites are very helpful, with loads of advice on what to do at each stage of getting started, in relation to tax and national insurance.

Tackle problems early

Lastly, if you run into difficulties, ask for help. Struggling away on your own might feel heroic, but it seldom solves the problem. A bit of timely advice can work wonders – and often others can think of solutions that you have missed. And if the situation is bad, a bit of moral support goes a long way.