A group from the Estonian Artists’ Association took part in a creative industries study tour of north west England, organised by David Parrish. Seven people took part in the creative industries study tour of Salford, Manchester and Liverpool. The group visited: Islington Mill, Salford Manchester Craft and Design Centre Dot Art, Liverpool Baltic Creative CIC, […]
Archive | Strategy
Work Life Integration
In one of my creative business books, I wrote about the “work life balance”. Since then I’ve travelled one step further. Now I practice “Work Life Integration”… I am proud to have a ‘lifestyle business’. Some people work hard all their lives in jobs they don’t like, so that in retirement they can travel and live the life of Reilly. For […]
MSc in Creative Entrepreneurship in Lithuania
David Parrish was a guest lecturer on the MSc in Creative Entrepreneurship at Vilnius University Business School in Lithuania. During the module on Product Innovation Development, students worked on their plans for new products and services in the creative industries. The interactive sessions combined students’ creativity and new product ideas with David’s experience in business […]
Superfans can boost your creative business
Nicolas Lovell calls them “Superfans”. Kevin Kelly has written about “True Fans”. These are the people who love what you do so much that they will buy everything you produce. Too often, creative businesses are obsessed with getting more customers instead of selling more to their best customers. Marketing is too often focused on winning […]
Creative Business Formula article now in Belarusian
A Creative Business Formula article has been published in Belarusian to coincide with the Minsk launch of the book ‘T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity’ in Belarusian. The article can be downloaded, printed, and shared on websites and elsewhere. It is online here: Стварыце сваю ўласную бізнэс-формулу The article has been […]
Business Focus for Creative Enterprises
Business focus for creative enterprises means selecting priorities for development as new opportunities arise. And saying No. Being creative gives rise to lots of ideas about how to develop an enterprise, but in a sense this is a problem too, because we end up with more ideas than resources to actually implement them. So how […]
Make money while you sleep!
As a creative entrepreneur, you can use intellectual property rights to protect your creativity and make money while you sleep. Creativity is all about ideas and creative enterprise is about making money from those ideas. The main assets of most creative businesses are intangible – ideas and know-how in the form of intellectual property (IP). […]
Precision Marketing for Creative Businesses
Precision Marketing is all about getting the right messages to the right people in the most effective way possible. The ‘3Ms of Marketing’ technique helps to achieve that precision. The three Ms are: Market, Message, Medium – and it’s important to deal with them in that order. This technique invites us to think things through […]
Choosing Customers
Choosing Customers is all about finding the right customers to fit with your creativity, ambitions and values. Remember: Not all customers are good customers. Oscar Wilde wrote: “The play was a great success but the audience was a total failure”. There was obviously a mis-match between the play and the audience! So what should you […]
Competing Effectively
Competing effectively involves understanding your competitive advantage in relation to rivals in the marketplace. In other words: You’re creative – but so are they! In one of my business development workshops for creative entrepreneurs, there were artists, musicians, advertising professionals etc; by coincidence there happened to be three designers in the room. It was interesting […]