CREATIVITY 4 $ALE?
If you’re not selling
your creations,
stop whining
about being hungry!
You got music, art, writing, design, sculpting, dance, painting, acting, photography, and/or craft skills and you’re broke?
How is that? Because the world you’re trying to make money in is not a music, art, writing, design, sculpting, dance, painting, acting, photography, craft skills world, that’s why.
It’s a business world. Period.
If all you seek is to win posthumous awards and recognition, good luck and God speed (and I hope –in addition to your talents– that your billionaire grandmother left you a great deal of money). But, if you’re looking to make your creative talents make money, you’re going to have to step it up (or maybe take yourself down a notch!).
It’s a business world. Period.
Will you have to prostitute your skills? Perhaps. Depends on your definition of “prostitute” (as a verb), but if you do feel like commercialization is a process of selling your soul, you might want to re-think the value structure you’ve saddled yourself with, and accept that payment for services is not always about the giving up of one’s spirit.
It is only within your realm of definition of the word, “prostitution” that you choose to accept for an act or creative product or service of yours to be what it is.
Be reminded, in other words, that
you choose your behavior.
When you can accept that truth, you will be able to stop torturing your self. You will free yourself to give up all the self-destructive attitudes you may harbor about having to trade off your creative talents for some project retainer or ongoing fee that you’ve considered unethical or unappreciative of your instinctive abilities.
Or, someone once told me she didn’t feel the stars were aligned for her to feel okay about getting paid for applying the purity of the innermost resources of her mind to a brand name.
She was not independently wealthy.
Instead of using her God-given talents to earn a living, I presume she’s now contributing to our nation’s misguided, deficit-draining, socialist agenda, collecting welfare and food stamps!
Do you have to market and sell and publicize yourself and the work you produce? Yes. Or hire someone you trust who has those skills and is sensitive enough to your neurotic state to be your agent or rep and stand in the publicity spotlight for you. Easy to do? No. Not if you are truly gifted and struggling to acknowledge the need.
Keep in mind that successful marketing of creative talents and creative products takes great amounts of tenacity and networking and skill-sets that include public relations (events and news release coverage), branding (both you and your creativity), and business applications to Internet and social media avenues.
Don’t feel that you’re lowering your standards. Choose instead to see you are raising your odds for success.
The more you sell, the more you can command the integrity levels of work you deserve, but right now, it may be time to start affording to bring home more than junkfood, and get some nutrition on the table to feed that creative furnace.
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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]
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[…] Those of us who create for a living, who own, operate, or manage creative businesses understand immediately what the “Risk being unliked” message is all about. And does it apply to professional selling too? Absolutely. […]