The Designing Your Creative Business™ Process is a deliberate and well thought-out method for achieving the success you want by carefully selecting a business model that fits with your creative, commercial and lifestyle goals.
It’s a smart process that enables us to get the best of all worlds: cool creative work, combined with financial reward, plus a happy lifestyle.
Many creative businesses grow “successfully” in terms of income and profit, yet fail to provide creative satisfaction and lifestyle rewards. After some years, the owners can feel ‘trapped’ in their businesses. They have come too far and are in too deep to turn back.
To prevent this from happening, we need to build into the ‘blueprint’ for our business all our objectives: creative, financial and lifestyle. This is why its about the deliberate design of a business.
It means thinking about what success really means, then constructing a business ‘formula’ accordingly. This design process means knowing ourselves, assessing external opportunities and threats, understanding competition and our competitive advantage, then selecting the right markets.
We can evaluate options using the Feasibility Filter.
We can make money while we sleep by generating income from the licensing of intellectual property.
The DYCB™ Process is set out in the Designing Your Creative Business ‘Toolkit’ publication.
This 20-page publication takes you through a practical process of understanding your motivations, goals and values so as to achieve success in your own terms. It’s a practical workbook for you to write your own answers to a series of questions and develop your own Unique Business Formula.
Read more about the ‘Designing Your Creative Business’ toolkit
‘Designing Your Creative Business’ toolkit
Free to download now.
The ‘Designing Your Creative Business’ toolkit is used in ‘Designing Your Creative Business’ workshops.
Learn more about ‘Designing Your Creative Business’ workshops.
The DYCB™ Process
– involves understanding your creative passion, motivations, goals and values.
– means defining all the ingredients of your own definition of true ‘success’ to ensure that the business delivers on all fronts.
– uses the PRIMEFACT checklist to evaluation your personal and business situation in terms of strengths and weaknesses.
– Opportunities and threats are identified through an external analysis using the ICEDRIPS checklist.
– also helps you understand your competitive advantage in relation to competitors and how to create a feasible business strategy.
– Markets and niches are selected strategically, on the basis of your strengths and competitive advantage.
– A Unique Business Formula is then devised to integrate three key elements: creative passion; competitive advantage and selecting markets.
– Once we are satisfied that these elements fit together in a realistic way, to deliver the success you want, can we proceed to a more detailed business plan.
– Further details include financial forecasting, marketing communications, intellectual property, organisational structure, employment issues, business risks and a range of other factors.
The Designing Your Creative Business process, toolkit and workshops have been designed to be particularly useful for businesses in the fields of graphic design, website design, product design, industrial design, photography, visual arts, designer makers, crafts, music, advertising, public relations, fashion design, film and video, and a range of other types of creative enterprise.
‘Designing Your Creative Business’ toolkit
Free to download now.
Resources
Explore additional resources for readers of the Designing Your Creative Business™ toolkit.
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Designing Your Creative Business™ and DYCB™ are trade marks of David’s company, T-Shirts and Suits Ltd.