What’s your Competitive Advantage? Knowing what you can excel at in relation to competitors – and then building your business strategy around that focus – is probably the most important element of any successful business strategy. If you are competing in a market place by offering the same thing as many other rivals, then you …
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How to Price a Service or Product in the Creative Industries
Pricing policy has both immediate and long-term consequences on a creative business and has an impact not only on the economics of the enterprise but also on the perception of its products and/or services. In the video and article below, David Parrish offers his advice about how to price a service or product in the …
Two kinds of Creativity: a-Creativity and i-Creativity
Creativity is a word that means different things to different people. To solve this problem, David proposes we acknowledge two kinds of creativity: “a-Creativity” and “i-Creativity”. He explains this in his keynote speech at TEDx Napoli. UPDATE: These two kinds of creativity can be used to diversify. “How to use i-Creativity in the Business Office” …
Paul Smith talks business
In a fascinating interview, fashion design guru Paul Smith talked about many aspects of growing a business in the creative industries, including: How he succeeds as a creative entrepreneur by saying no to many potential clients, choosing only those projects which fit his brand and excite his creativity. He has (politely) rejected the opportunity to …
How to achieve Business Success in the Creative Sector
David Parrish advises creative entrepreneurs to consider five key points to achieve business success in the creative, digital and cultural industries. This short ‘How to Succeed in Creative Business’ video, summarises David’s advice about how entrepreneurs can make their creative and digital businesses even more successful. Define Success – in your own terms, with your …
Features and Benefits: the “So What?!” test
If you are talking to a potential customer and they say (or maybe just think) “So What?!”, then the chances are you are talking about features, not benefits. It’s a trap we can all easily fall into. We are enthusiastic about our creative businesses and want to tell people about what we do and how …
Raise your Prices!
Thanks to Leslie Burns for highlighting an article in the MIT Sloan Management Review about pricing. All of the issues it raises about pricing strategies and pricing mistakes are relevant to the creative industries, whether you are selling products or services, even though the examples are from big manufacturing firms. I think some of the …
Don’t hide from customers!
Why are you hiding from potential customers?! That’s what I think when a website invites me to contact “[email protected]” instead of a named person. Are there real people in there? If so, why are they hiding? Customers want to do business with people, not with a website. As a potential client, I want to know …
Three Top Business Tips for Creatives
I was asked to give “three top business tips” to creative entrepreneurs in an interview about how to successfully blend creativity and business. Ellie Stevenson interviewed me, along with Nick Williams of ‘Inspired Entrepreneur’, for an article published on ArtsHub UK. Here’s an extract: Can you give us three top tips for running your own …
Your Creative Business Plan
Let’s make a distinction between planning for a successful creative business and ‘writing a business plan’. The two are not necessarily the same. In my own experience, many people write business plans purely because they are a requirement of investors or funders. These business plans tend to be written without conviction and are then quickly …