The 10 pillars of a successful creative business

Most of us don’t see our creative work as a business.

You’re an artist, a designer, a director, a maker, a musician, a performer, a photographer, a writer. You’re creative. You don’t tend to see what you do as a business, and that’s fine. Most of the time. But if you want to make good money from your work, you also need to think like an entrepreneur. At least some of the time.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to making money from your work. Our work will be different. So are the audience or the clients we enjoy working with. Our preferred ways of making, thinking, organising vary hugely. 

But over more than 15 years of coaching creative professionals – and over a long career as a writer and magazine editor before that – I’ve noticed some general principles, attitudes and skills that successful creatives have in common. 

The good news: these are skills we can all learn. 

I go into more detail on this in my free 10-day e-course. And we dive really deeply into each area in my 10-week group coaching course. Here, I’m just outlining the ten foundational pieces we should all build on.

This isn’t a set of one-off tasks to tick off; it’s more a repeating, rising spiral. Develop habits and routines to strengthen each pillar, and keep going back to them, honing and improving. 

If you do, you’ll find your income grows, work flows more easily. Knowing that you can pay the bills gives you freedom to work on personal projects, to say no more often to jobs you don’t want. You might even find you enjoy it more.

1. Find your why

Everything gets easier once you have a clear sense of direction and purpose. 

• Why do you do what you do? 
• What effect could it have on the world?
• Who is your ideal audience or client? 
• What do they need, and how can you connect with them, serve them and speak to them? 
• What values are important to you? 
• And most of all, what kind of life you want to create for yourself? 

Design a life that will make you happy. Then create a business to enable that. Too many of us try to fit life into the cracks around work, and that’s a recipe for misery. 

2. Own your thing

If you can’t explain what you do and who it’s for in a succinct sentence or two, how can anyone know if you’re right for them? 

Own what you do, without excuse, apology or shyness. Be willing to say who you’re for, what you make – and to share that with people who need or ant what you make or do.

And learn to deal with all the gremlins that get in the way of your best work: the nagging inner critics, impostor syndrome, the perfectionism, fear and procrastination stopping you ever putting work out there. 

3. Find your focus

We live in a world of distraction. Learn to tune out the trivia and focus on what’s most important. 

• Make time for your creative work – including those personal, exploratory projects that may not pay immediately, but are essential for keeping any creative practice alive. 
• Make time to grow your business too. But do this by focussing on just one task at a time, rather than juggling a huge list of things you could, should and ought to do and finishing none of them. 

4. Make creativity a habit

Habits and routines can support you, especially if your work is unpredictable, your routines often disrupted. 

Don’t wait for inspiration to arrive. Don’t wait to clear the decks, for some magical stretch of free time to open up so you can work on something. Make the time. Take the choice out of whether you create or not, by blocking out time in your calendar and getting down to it, whether you feel like it or not. 

Show up regularly and you’ll still have bad days, when nothing seems to work at all. But you’ll never miss those magical good days, when it all just flows. 

5. Build a strong network

Money offers security. But so does social capital. We all need a good support team, people who help us make the work and get it out there. Or help at home while we’re working. Friends who pick us up when we’re low. Clients who recommend us to others.

We need the power of scenius, other creatives to inspire or provoke us, people who will show our work, write about it, discuss it, buy it. Who will collaborate with us, hire us. 

And we need our gods, our mentors: creatives we admire, whose careers show us what’s possible, whose work seems to soar above anything we’ve achieved (yet). 

6. Make friends with marketing

Yup, it’s the word most of us dread. But marketing doesn’t have to be pushy, sleazy, fake. It can be about seeking out the people who love or need what you do, then connecting, communicating, and building authentic relationships.

It doesn’t have to be needy. See it as joyfully sharing, explaining, showing what you do or make. As helping, teaching, finding your tribe and saying, “I made this for you. Do you want to know more?”

Marketing can involve social media, but it doesn’t have to. It could be pitching ideas, making offers, calling editors or clients who commission you, checking what they need. Perhaps you give a talk for local businesses about how quality photography, graphic design or copywriting can help them. Or you connect with someone who already has a huge audience of your ideal clients, and propose a collaboration. 

Experiment. Get curious. Find what works for you. Then do it, regularly.

7. Money matters!

Of course we do this for love. But the myth of the starving artist is a dangerous one. We all deserve to be paid for our work, and money shouldn’t be a source of fear and dread. 

So make friends with your finances. Do your admin, know your numbers, face down your demons and the stories you’ve been telling yourself about money. (I have a free workbook to help with this.)

It can be hard to put a price on your work, your services. It helps to get clear on who you serve with your work or services. The story you’re telling about your work. And the value you’re offering your clients. 

8. Create new income streams

The online world can be overwhelming. The seemingly endless list of things we could, should, must, ought to do to sell more work, bring in more money can feel daunting. 

But what if you see this as a series of experiments, play projects? Some will bring in a trickle of income, others a steady stream. Some will be fun, others not for you. 

There are so many options out there for building new income streams: reusing or repackaging past work, teaching your skills, making low-cost products. 

The more willing your are to explore and play with these, the more those trickles add up to something more substantial. 

9. Think like a CEO

Most of us are so busy working in our business that we forget to work on it. So put time aside to step back and look at the bigger picture. 

• Are you enjoying the work? If not, what needs to change?
• Is it bringing in the money you need – and if not, how can you change that? 
• Is your marketing working? If not, what can you tweak or try?
• Where are the bottlenecks and blocks? Are there systems you can put in place to change that? 
• Are you using your assets – the past work you’ve created – to the full? 
• How can you create more time, energy, money, fun?

10. Take care of you

The biggest asset your business has is you. Yet we often take more care of our kit, our car, our workspace than we do ourselves.

• No matter how busy you are, take time for rest and also time to play (because that’s where your inspiration comes from). 
• Make space for exercise and self-care because none of us can be at our best when we are ill or exhausted. 
• Make sure you always have things to look forward to, and that your life feels fun, juicy, fulfilling. Because that’s why we’re here. no?

So what next?

The links in this article lead to more detailed posts if you want to explore further. But if you’d like support and deeper discussion with a small group of creative professionals, my next group coaching programme starts on Oct 8 at 7.30pm UK time. 

Over ten weeks, we do a deep dive on each of the areas above. Book by September 8, and you also get a free one-hour private coaching session with me. There are only five spaces left. 

Click below to find out more, or book a chat with me to see if it’s right for you. But also remember that there’s a no-quibble money-back guarantee if you join but find it’s not for you.