In the second of this series about the three hats a creative entrepreneur must wear, today we're looking at the Manager's hat, the Creative Director role, for creative entrepreneurs are managers as well as makers.
Some of us would rather forget this. We think we want to “just do the writing/teaching/healing/making”. Or we fantisize about having a big team, including assistants, personal maids and gardeners, who will look after every aspect of our life and we can just make, make, make.
Well, maybe that will be your fate one day… but it's more likely to happen if you learn to manage your small creative business yourself first. A funny thing is likely to happen on the way, though. You'll realize that the managing and the making are inextricably linked. That success in one is dependent on successfully doing the other.
Creative Entrepreneurs are Managers
You put on your Manager Hat for the work and play you need to do on your business: overseeing and directing your efforts, finances and assets.
So how do you think and act when in Manager mode?
- Manager Work:
- Wearing this hat, the features of the business itself, not just its projects and products, become important. For Manager You, the work of your creative business is to integrate your money and mission, passion and profits into a long-term, scalable, sustainable business with good income and significant influence.
- Manager Wants: Manager You craves order, safety and security.
- Manager Perspective is holistic. Wearing this hat, we see our business as a system that delivers profit and pleasure to the maker, the entrepreneur, the team, the customers and everyone it touches.
- Manager abcdeFs:
- attitude: How can we make sure things don't go wrong and get smoother processes in place?
- belief: Business is a never-ending series of problems to solve.
- concept: Finding and keeping happy customers is about getting pricing, features, availability and support right, and having good problem-solving processes.
- denial: Manager tends to overlook the power of spontaneity and serendipity and disparage belief in the power of the creative spirit
- expectation: If things can go wrong, they will go wrong
- Fear: Maker and Maximizer will run the business into trouble.
- guilt: I shouldn't be so hard on others
- Manager Time: Manager You looks at three timeframes. How we got here, what we're doing today and the direction we're taking. The aim is to continuously improve processes and tools to protect the Maker (so craft can continue), and the Maximizer (so growth can continue), and all three together can take the business where it needs to go.
- Manager Money: In Manager mode, you think of money as a foundation and a protector. Money provides the protection your Maker and Maximizer need to complete projects. And when it comes to money, it is the Manager looks after the how. You know that decisions you make about how money will be spent is the true statement of your business values.
- Manager Sucess: Communications, customer support, the effectiveness of team, tools and techniques: these key are the keys to success for Manager You, and its measures.
- Manager You Needs to Beware: anxiety, joylessness, rigidity. The key to this is creative practice.
Learn about the other two hats a creative entrepreneur must wear in:
The Creative Entrepreneur’s Three Hats, Hat 1 Production: Creative Entrepreneurs are Makers
The Creative Entrepreneur’s Three Hats, Hat 3: Creative Entrepreneurs are Maximizers