Are you a ‘busy fool’? We avoid doing difficult things by occupying ourselves with trivial things. We deal with urgent trivia instead of what’s really important. Keeping busy like this allows us to avoid having to make important decisions. In my work, advising and training hundreds of businesses all around the world, I see too …
Category: Development Strategies
Your Competitive Advantage
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 …
Word of Mouth Marketing : Not ‘proper marketing’?
Word of Mouth Marketing. Some people think it’s not ‘proper marketing’. Pedro, an entrepreneur in Colombia, told me he wasn’t able to do any real marketing because of a lack of budget in the early stage of his web design business. He assured me that once he had generated some profits he would devise ‘a …
Increase prices with a winning marketing strategy
Devising a successful marketing strategy leads to charging higher prices for your creative products and services. It also works the other way around. If you increase your prices, you will have to devise an improved marketing strategy. Whichever way you tackle it, you can increase prices with a winning marketing strategy. This is because a …
The Curve: from Free to Superfans
Download and read the free eBook ‘10 Ways to Make Money in a FREE World‘ from Nicholas Lovell, author of The Curve. I’m recommending The Curve to my consultancy clients in the creative and digital industries. This free eBook is a great short introduction to the The Curve. It contains specific references to creative industries …
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 …
Ideas are not enough!
One of the points I make in my training workshop ‘How to Make Money While You Sleep’ is that ‘Ideas Don’t Make You Rich”. I quote multimillionaire Felix Dennis, publisher and poet, who wrote in his book ‘How to Get Rich’: “Ideas don’t make you rich, the correct execution of ideas does.” In other words, …
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 …
Social Media – keep it personal!
Keep it personal when using social media. That was one of the key messages from DK of MediaSnackers, who gave a very impressive talk in Aberdeen where we were both keynote speakers at the launch of the Cultivating Creativity project to develop creative businesses in Scotland. I learnt a lot (and yes, still have a …