The most successful creative entrepreneurs deliberately alienate those customers who don’t matter in order to more strongly embrace those who really do matter. Not all customers are good customers and marketing is about choosing the right customers; it’s not about trying to please everyone. Of course this means you have to choose which customers not …
Category: Development Strategies
Powerful Customers
My aunty is 85 years old and recently she got a new digital TV with a Sky Box. I was showing her how to use the remote control and I said, “Look at this. Imagine you’re watching a TV programme and you want to take a break or make a cup of coffee. All you …
Profitable Collaborations
What are the essential elements of profitable collaborations when creative businesses work together? Some ideas about effective business collaborations in the creative industries are in these articles I’ve written: Creative Collaborations and other essential C-words published by Creative Choices (2009) Creating ‘Interprises’ published on the T-Shirts and Suits blog (2007) I’m interested in your experience …
What Google has found to be true
One of the Ten Things Google Has Found To Be True is: “It’s best to do one thing really, really well.” I agree. It’s all about strategic focus. See also: Chase One Rabbit
New Business Models
Customers are more powerful than ever. Because of changes in technology, particularly the interactive internet (Web 2.0), there has been a fundamental and irreversible shift of power in favour of consumers. Creative business that embrace this change will thrive, by using new business models such as crowd-sourcing, viral marketing, crowd-financing, buzz marketing and plogging. The …
Don’t discount prices!
Thanks to Natalie Bolton from Lion Eyes Television for telling me about this amusing video. It’s fun to watch – and it raises some important issues about pricing and customers for creative businesses and cultural enterprises. If customers believe you will discount prices, it’s because they think they can go elsewhere and get the same …
Too much advice !
Although I’m a business adviser, I rarely give direct advice to the creative entrepreneurs I’m helping. Instead, I help them to reach their own conclusions by asking questions, providing information and guiding them towards the kind of success they seek to achieve. There’s no shortage of advice. Often my clients come to me with an …
The Creative Business: 12 Modules
The Creative Business is a series of 12 modules of information about developing creative enterprises, written especially for people running businesses in the creative industries. The information is particularly relevant to creative businesses and cultural enterprises in the fields of Advertising, Literature and Publishing, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Music, Design, Cultural Heritage, and Crafts. Written …
Raising Finance from Fans
Raising finance from loans or investments can be a major challenge for all types of businesses, and it’s especially difficult when credit is scarce and investors are feeling the pinch. So any alternative ways of raising funds are worth exploring. Enterprises in the creative, cultural and digital sector have creativity at the centre of their …
20 Things You Must Know
Thanks to Alun Parry for telling me about Andrew Dubber’s excellent free eBook New Music Strategies: The 20 Things You Must Know About Music Online. It’s a must for anyone in the music business. And for everyone else too. For other creative entrepreneurs it has lots of useful information about Web 2.0 business strategies, the …